What an amazing two days it was!

Monday: we woke up and had breakfast and attended the fire ritual at the temple; it was very impressive. Very impressive indeed. 

We started off the day walk by finding a map and then walking for what seemed like forever and it was like a ghost town the whole way to town. Once we got there, we went to eat and had ice cream as well, then headed off to go and look at various gravestones and a mausoleum. 

The gravestones in Japan are worthy to note; they are elaborate and take great care with them, even eating at the grave site as well as we saw. We got to the mausoleum that houses the monk who started the sect of Buddhism that we saw at Koya San. It was huge and there was lanterns everywhere we went and boo made plenty of jokes that I couldn't stop laughing at. 

After we left there and walked back to the ryokan, we decided to watch dragon ball z and we had dinner and then slept. It was a long but a good day. 

Tuesday: we had to get up early in order to get our bus to hashimoto. We checked out and headed there. The journey there and to kii tanabe was so nice and scenic. 

The train we got on. Very nice seats. 

One of the views I saw while boo slept. 

Arrived at kii tanabe. Was very nice indeed and hot. 

Once we got there, there was a lady waiting for us and took us to the tourist info center where she gave us all our details about the hiking. Before we left for takajiri, we went and got something to eat at a place called senuki. Man, that place was amazing! The food was big and the price was low and we also got something called inari, which is rice wrapped in fried tofu, which was sweet and savory! I fell in love with it! 

Because boo had a sugar craving, we went and got some ice cream and then left for takajiri. The bus ride felt so long, but we got there in the end and there was someone waiting to take our bags over to our hotel. As for us, we had to hike and that hike was something else! I was scared at first, because it felt like I could of died more than once, but it was good in the end for sure. I prayed a lot and definitely God helped me with the fears I had. Eventually we got to minshuku and had so much food it was crazy! 

Now we are off to sleep and hike again tomorrow!